Feminism as a movement for political and social equity is important, but feminism as an academic clique committed to eccentric doctrines about human nature is not. Eliminating discrimination against women is important, but believing that women and men are born with indistinguishable minds is not. Freedom of choice is important, but ensuring that women make up exactly 50 percent of all professions is not. And eliminating sexual assaults is important, but advancing the theory that rapists are doing their part in a vast male conspiracy is not.

People today sometimes get uncomfortable with empirical claims that seem to clash with their political assumptions, often because they haven't given much thought to the connections.

After their return from Babylon, the practice of human sacrifice died out among the Jews, but survived as an ideal in one of its break-away sects, which believed that God accepted the torture-sacrifice of an innocent man in exchange for not visiting a worse fate on the rest of humanity. The sect is called Christianity.

Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world.

The theory that religion is a force for peace, often heard among the religious right and its allies today, does not fit the facts of history.

The more you think about and interact with other people, the more you realize that it is untenable to privilege your interests over theirs.

Like the early days of the Internet, the dawn of personal genomics promises benefits and pitfalls that no one can foresee.